Peaky Blinders season 4, episode 1 review: Ferocious and fantastic

With the fantastic cast, eye-popping cinematography and pumping soundtrack of previous years all very much present and correct, the fourth series of BBC Two's Peaky Blinders could have comfortably provided six hours of worthy entertainment without taking any major risks.

The fact that it's avoided the easy path is testament to the show's limitless ambition: like the power-hungry gangsters at its heart, Peaky is always reaching for something bigger and better and launches back onto our screens with a ferocity and intensity that few other series on television can match.

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The Shelby family are facing their biggest threat yet – the New York Mafia, led by mob boss Luca Changretta (a captivating Adrien Brody, who conveys a great deal of menace with limited screen-time and only a few words of dialogue).

BBC/Caryn Mandabach/Robert Viglasky

Soon, the entire clan finds itself in danger of annihilation and this claustrophobic hour ends with a hell of a release, as a cocky John Shelby (Joe Cole) is gunned down in a 1920s drive-by, Mafia goons leaping out from behind a horse-and-cart.

The cast and creator Steven Knight have promised that what follows is the best series of Peaky Blinders yet. But it also promises to be the darkest – because, even before John's (presumed) demise, the divided Shelbys are in a bad way in the wake of Tommy shopping them all to the police.

One year on from the whole family save Tommy very nearly being strung up for their crimes and they're all still reeling in their own way. In a bravura performance, Helen McCrory is by turns terrifying and hugely sympathetic as a Polly who's as resolute and ruthless as ever, but also hugely damaged by her experiences.

BBC/Caryn Mandabach/Robert Viglasky

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Arthur, once a raging Brummie bulldog, is a shadow of his old self, house-bound and quite literally henpecked, whiling away the dull hours with his domineering wife and the chickens for company. ("For Christmas, get him a sewing kit," sneers John. "So he can sew his f**king balls back on.")

It's a set-up that allows the brilliant Paul Anderson, a proven master at conveying rage and anguish, to demonstrate his comic skill as he's served many of the episode's lighter moments. These are like gold dust, scarce but, given the dark, paranoid atmosphere of much of the episode, hugely valuable.

Then there's Tommy (Cillian Murphy, spellbinding as ever). Estranged from his family, he's escaped the grime, smoke and struggle and is 'enjoying' a life of sex, freedom and whiskey sours. But there's an emptiness about this new Tommy and while he might begin as a more cultured figure, sporting spectacles and a shiny new OBE, he ends the episode covered head to toe in another man's blood.

Circumstances might force his hand, but what this first episode is really about for Tommy is his inability to escape not just the sins of his past, but his own nature. "My hand has blood on it," says Tommy's turncoat cook when his boss offers to shake. "Mine too," the blue-eyed mobster replies. (A tall handsome man, in a dusty black coat, with a red right hand...)

And it's not just the violence. A formidable woman – real-life political firebrand Jessie Eden, played here by Charlie Murphy – catches Tommy's eye after failing to be intimidated and challenging his principles, just as his wife Grace did years before.

BBC/Caryn Mandabach/Robert Viglasky

Tommy hasn't changed one bit. He's unable to resist his old vices, including meddling in his family's affairs, still doing his best to exert influence from afar. It all comes to a head as the Changretta vendetta forces him to return to his roots in Small Heath. As old ally Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee) tells him, "You're the wild gypsy boy forever, Tommy."

Peaky Blinders delivers both the familiar and the truly unexpected for a stunning series opener – still grimy yet gorgeous, bleak yet beautiful, but newly daring.

The Shelbys had risen about as high in the social strata as they could with compromising what makes the show so compelling. Now they've been brought crashing back down to earth, and the prospect of watching them struggle not just to get back on top, but to survive, is now hugely enticing.

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